1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to swaging and, more particularly, to apparatus for automatically swaging pipe.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In many industries, particularly the automotive industry, it is required that pipes have specially configured or swaged ends either to provide a desired appearance or to facilitate the joining or coupling of pipes. Vehicles, particularly automobiles, require pipes having swaged ends for exhaust systems, and the fabrication of such pipes presents a problem in the exhaust system and muffler replacement industry due to the vast inventory required to service the various makes and models of automobiles. In order to overcome this problem, many establishments have pipe bending and swaging machinery on the premises such that a supply of straight pipes may be stocked and each pipe can be bent to the configuration required for the automobile to be serviced at that time.
Many attempts have been made to automate pipe bending machines in order to decrease the element of human error in the bending of pipes and the time required to bend a pipe. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,766,764, an automatic pipe bender is disclosed which permits the bending of pipe inexpensively and with great speed, and the use of this automatic pipe bender has been found to be so effective as to permit a central pipe bending shop utilizing the automatic pipe bender to supply specially bent pipes to a large number of establishments servicing automobiles by replacing exhaust systems and mufflers. The use of this automatic pipe bender, however, permits the production of bent pipes at much faster rates than the rate at which existing swagers can be utilized to swage the ends of the pipes.
One of the primary reasons for the slowness of existing swagers is that prior to a swaging operation, an operator must manually loosen collet clamping plates, insert a pipe to be swaged, position a set of collets around the pipe and within the clamping plates and then tighten the clamping plates to hold the pipe stationary during swaging. The steps required of the operator are time consuming due to the manual operation required in tightening the clamping plates prior to the swaging operation and the loosening of the clamping plates after the swaging operation to remove the pipe.